


Cause & Effect

by Workparty



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Sinking Ships Like A Shallow Reef
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Workparty/pseuds/Workparty
Summary: Once is a coincidence, and twice is a pattern. After that, Danny can only wonder; do his dates cause ghost fights for Phantom, or do Phantom's ghost fights cause dates for Danny? Both seem unlikely, but this feels an awful lot like cause & effect.Content warning for multiple harrowingly bad first dates. Updates every sometimes.
Relationships: Danny Phantom/Danny Fenton, Pitch Pearl - Relationship
Comments: 19
Kudos: 50





	1. The Dance

“Ok, Fenton... You’ve got this.”

Danny breathed in and out to steady his nerves and knocked on the door. He could practically hear the echos reverberating through the cavernous interior, the scale of the room half-glanced through the front windows as he had made the trek to the front door of Paulina Sanchez's house. The echo died out slowly and the crickets across the mammoth lawn resumed chirping.

After a few moments with no response, he thought better of his approach and rang the bell.

A door swung open immediately and Paulina stepped out, dressed in a stunning pink dress, sparkling in the lights of the foyer behind her, a radiant smile showing two rows of immaculate, gleaming teeth.

They stood there for a moment. He had expected her to say something, although, after a few silent seconds, she was clearly leaving the matter of first impressions firmly with him. Danny involuntarily straightened his tie.

"H-hi, Paulina. I uh. You look, uh, great." He smiled nervously and held out the bouquet of drugstore flowers.

"Oh, how nice! Some flowers. Thanks... Danny." Without breaking the smile, she took them and wordlessly set them down on a table just inside the doorway.

"You might have to put those in water..."

"Oh, they'll be fine," she said, stepping outside and letting the door close behind her. "Why don't you take my arm?"

He did as instructed, grinning broadly, not quite able to take his eyes off of her. The way she stood there so effortlessly. Those perfect teeth, the smile hardly faltering as she asked him why they were standing still. The careless grace of her—

" _Hello_? Danny?"

"Oh, uh, sorry." He chuckled nervously and set off back toward the street. "My sister is going to give us a ride to the dance. She's in the red hatchback."

"Oh, a chauffeur! How _charming_."

Aside from a slight giggle as he opened the back driver's side door for her, they spent the next few minutes in almost complete silence. Paulina spent the time looking brightly out the window. Danny was a nervous wreck, both hands gripping his knees as if his life depended on it.

How on earth had he gotten Paulina to agree to go to the homecoming dance with him? She was the hottest girl in their grade, and he was a nobody with freaky parents, who had to ask his big sister to drive him places. He was totally going to screw this up, and... Danny looked up, catching Jazz looking at him in the rearview mirror. She motioned at him to say something – anything – before they actually arrived at the school.

"So uh..." Danny started. Suddenly, Paulina was looking at him _way_ too intently, and he wished he had actually figured out what he was going to ask. His mind latched on to the first grammatically correct idea it had. "...do you, come here often?"

She seemed unsure how to respond to that, while up front Jazz took advantage of a red light to close her eyes and pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment.

Danny laughed nervously. "That was, uh, just a joke. Heh."

"Oh. Ha ha." Paulina nodded and smiled again for a moment, then turned back to the window until they arrived at Casper High.

There was a chill in the breeze, as Danny ran around the back of the car to open Paulina's door for her. He tripped on the unfamiliar formal shoes, and by the time he regained his footing, she was already on the sidewalk, holding her arm out expectantly. He grinned and took it, leading her up the walkway to the front doors. Sparing a glance backward, he caught his sister's eye, and she gave him two thumbs up and what could pass for an optimistic smile.

He smiled back weakly. He'd take whatever vote of confidence he could get.

* * *

They had one dance together and he had only stepped on Paulina's toes 5 times in the dark, so Danny thought things were going pretty OK, all things considered. With a slightly pained smile, Paulina suggested they should sit down for a bit, and that Danny should get them some drinks. With a shy grin, he agreed and made his way to the refreshment table.

By the time he got back with two plastic cups of watery punch, his date (and indeed, their table) had disappeared behind a globular cluster of A-listers, their satellites, and even a few brave souls he recognized from the marching band. With a sigh, he brushed some stray balloons off an adjoining table and took a seat. He'd nurse his drink and wait for the crowd to thin out a bit before attempting to get back to Paulina.

He'd made it through his glass and was well on his way to the bottom of the second before Tucker and Valerie elbowed their way past the growing crowd to get to Danny.

Tucker smiled at him broadly. "Heya Danny! How's your night going?"

"Who knows? As I see Paulina I'll get back to you."

Valerie laughed at that, although seeing his pained reaction, she leaned over and clapped him on the shoulder. "Sorry. I shouldn't laugh at you getting ditched."

"I haven't been—"

"But you have to admit, it _is_ kind of funny."

"I'm not even sure all these kids go to our school," Tucker added.

Danny slumped forward, letting his head hit the plastic tablecloth. "I totally got ditched."

Tucker leaned over, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Hey, chin up Danny. Look at it this way," Danny tensed up in preparation for whatever Tucker thought might be the silver lining. "At least you don't have to embarrass yourself on the dance floor anymore!"

Valerie huffed. "You're one to talk Foley, it's been an uphill battle avoiding your feet all night."

Tucker laughed at that. "Bet I can make it through the next song without stepping on your toes _once_."

"I like my odds!" She grinned and led him by the hand back to the dance floor. "See you later, Fenton."

Danny slumped back in his chair and waved at the pair, growing weariness settling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he'd just head home early, even if it was only 8 o'clock. It wasn't particularly pleasant to sit around at a school dance, with the bass rumbling loud enough to shake the floor... And the walls... Wait a second...

The rumbling grew louder and Danny sat up, looking around for the source. The building was practically quaking, and he could see several other people on the periphery of the gymnasium starting to notice, all of them looking around nervously.

The cause revealed itself when a crack formed near the top of the far wall, above the DJ booth. The DJ had to run to avoid being crushed as chunks of brick came raining down, demolishing the equipment on the stage. There was half a second delay between the music stopping and the screaming; there was another half-second between the screaming starting and the roaring.

As the dust cleared, a massive dragon head poked its way through the gap, scanning the crowd. Apparently not liking what it was seeing, it roared, and drove deadly-looking claws straight through the masonry, shearing away most of what was left of the wall.

Danny could only sit and watch, frozen from the sudden appearance. The dragon pushed into the room, sending people scrambling out of the way, although its intelligent eyes passed over most of them, scanning the crowd– and landing squarely on Paulina.

" **You!** " Its booming voice was enough to dislodge half of the decorations taped to the ceiling, but it only managed to say the one word before a ball of bright, neon green plasma hit it square in the jaw, and it was knocked over onto the dance floor, narrowly missing several fleeing teenagers.

As the dragon hit the ground, it kicked up another cloud of dust, and Danny scrambled on top of his chair to get a better look at it. A considerable portion of the student body (feeling invincible, or maybe just not thinking things through) crowded around the motionless creature as cheap paper streamers fluttered down on top of it. Aside from their murmurs, it was suddenly all too quiet in the gymnasium.

His heart was still racing, but Danny's thoughts finally had a moment to catch up with what he had just seen; with a sinking feeling, Danny had just enough time to realize where the blast had come from before Phantom himself showed up. The ghost zipped through the gap in the wall, coming to an abrupt stop just over the crowd. He looked first surprised, and then thoroughly unimpressed with the people jockeying for a better view of his quarry.

"Hey! What are you all doing standing here?! That's an _actual literal dragon_ on the ground there!" The ghostly teen motioned with both arms as if they could have genuinely missed it lying there.

Whatever reaction he had hoped for, it probably wasn't Dash leading them in '3 cheers for Phantom', or... What looked like Paulina squeeing and declaring her love for the ghost boy.

Danny frowned at that. Phantom had clearly heard it too and was blushing a bright green, his serious demeanor dropping for just a moment. "C'mon guys, it's just... It's just a ghost dragon." He tried to wave them off, but it was half-hearted. "Now, get out of here before it—"

A massive, spectral tail rose up and slapped the ghost clear across the gym while he was distracted. The dragon clambered back on its feet with a roar, sending the students running again. " _That's_ for interrupting me! Now then, as for _you_ ," the dragon grabbed a fleeing Paulina in a scaly hand, bringing the squirming girl up level with its eyes. "Once I get rid of _you_ , I can be the prettiest girl at the ball!"

Danny had to give Paulina credit; she was brave enough to look more confused than afraid in the moment before the dragon intangibly dove straight through the floor and out of sight.

With a sigh, Danny hopped off his chair and jogged out of the gym. Every time Phantom showed up, it was trouble. At half a gymnasium's distance, this was the closest Danny had ever got to him, and the closest he ever wanted to get. He'd heard enough from his parents to know better than to get too close to a ghost unprepared.

...at least, until one had kidnapped his date.

In that case, it was time to chase a dragon.

* * *

He passed Tucker near the stairwell; taking the steps two at a time, he had shouted at Tucker to call Fentonworks, only realizing after he'd made it to the basement that Tucker may not actually know the phone number for ghost reports off-hand. Or that he might not have access to a phone.

Or might not even understand what Danny was saying as he ran by.

But there was no time for second-guessing when Paulina was apparently being targeted by a hostile ghost-dragon. Danny breathed in and out to steady his nerves and then took off down the darkened hallway to where he hoped the storage room under the gym was located. He'd only been down here once before, when he had to fill in as the school mascot, and he had only _mostly_ been paying attention when Coach Tetslaff had led him around.

 _Mostly_.

He took several wrong turns before he found a door marked 'Athletic Storage'. He held a hand to it before opening it; it was ice cold. This must be the place. He was about to open it when he heard a crash come from within the room and a masculine scream, the latter getting louder and louder before a black and white blur flew through the door and then Danny in short order.

It was an unpleasant, bone-chilling cold, and Danny whipped around in fear, pressing himself up against the wall. The ghost was lying in a heap on the floor, groaning.

"Man, I have _gotta_ watch out for tails..." Phantom sat up, rubbing his forehead with a gloved hand. He seemed spooked when he saw Danny looking at him. "Oh! Uh. Hi?"

"...Hello?"

The specter frowned, floating to an upright position, bobbing gently in midair just slightly higher than the human. "What are you doing here? Don't you know there's a dragon on the loose?"

At the mention of the more overtly hostile ghost, Danny pulled away from the wall and crossed his arms. "I could ask you the same question. That dragon flew off with my– With somebody I know, and I'm here to get her out of danger."

"Ok, well that's... Not specific, but listen, kid, just leave this to the professionals."

"My name is _Danny Fenton_ , and as far as I'm concerned the professionals aren't here yet. All I've seen are two ghosts fighting and a human caught in the middle of it."

Phantom started to argue but fell silent when Paulina screamed from within the room he had recently been evicted from. He turned back to Danny, his anger redirected for the moment. "There's no time for this. Do whatever you want, I'm going to go catch a dragon."

"Fine. But I'm going too." Danny opened the door quietly, peaking inside carefully. Phantom glided easily through the wall before dropping to invisibility; if Danny squinted, he could just about see the faint outline of the ghost by the one working light bulb, and he moved to follow after him.

Reaching the end of a row of high shelving, they could see Paulina, tied to a post near the center of the room. She was struggling against the ropes, fully conscious, while the dragon appeared to be busily digging through toppled piles of equipment. Around Paulina's legs, it had already amassed a small pile of hockey sticks, baseball bats, and scrap chunks of wood.

It looked like it was trying to build a pyre.

And then the heavy metal door, which Danny had let go of without thinking, fell shut behind them with a resounding clang.

All the ghosts in the room turned to face him with varying levels of anger in their eyes. Phantom was still invisible, really, but somehow Danny just _knew_ he was getting a look. For her part, Paulina seemed overjoyed. "Danny! Hurry, go get the ghost boy!"

Before he could react properly, the dragon clumsily reoriented itself in the small space, snapping its jaws with fury. It nearly bit Danny's head off as he clumsily backed away from it. It might have succeeded, too, if Phantom hadn't sucker-punched it in the side of the head as it moved past him.

"Twice in one night! Didja see that?" The dragon recovered much more quickly from this hit and reared on Phantom, who faded back to visibility with a small wave and flew off deeper into the room.

The dragon spun around (toppling several shelving units in the process) to follow after him, Danny ducking low under the tail as it soared inches over his head. He ran for Paulina, and started loosening the ropes binding her. He was cruising on an adrenaline rush so intense that he forgot to be nervous. "Do you think you can walk?"

"Wait, just let the ghost boy save me! ...Wait, the ghost boy!" Paulina used a recently freed hand to point at Phantom, terror in her eyes. Danny paused his untying long enough to follow her gaze and see Phantom pinned by the snarling beast; it looked like he was trying to grab a golden collar around its neck, but he didn't have quite enough reach while also holding back its lethal fangs with his other hand.

Acting on pure instinct, Danny called out. "Hey, Phantom!" The ghost looked at him, perplexed, and Danny picked up and threw a hockey stick at his free arm.

Catching it with ease, Phantom jammed the business end between the dragon's neck and the collar, and with one determined motion, the collar was snapped off. The dragon stopped its attack mid-lunge, seeming dizzy and confused for a moment, before falling over onto the ground, motionless. As they watched, its hulking form shrank down into a ghostly woman of much more human proportions, before Phantom unclipped a metal cylinder from his belt and the dragon (princess?) was pulled inside. He clipped it back onto the belt with an easy smile.

...until he finally realized with some surprise that there were still two humans in the room staring directly at him. He recovered quickly, and with a grin, shot out of the room through the ceiling.

After a moment, Danny cleared his throat. "So um. Can you walk?"

Paulina sighed moodily like she had just been awoken from a pleasant dream. "No. That stupid dragon made me twist my ankle. You'll have to help me out of here."

"O-okay, sure." Danny loosened the last rope, supporting Paulina's arm around his shoulder. The nervousness was back. They limped along, out of the room into the hallway, before Paulina sighed again. He wasn't sure what to make of it. "Sorry, if this was a bad night for you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, I was just thinking of the ghost boy. He has such dreamy eyes when he's fighting for me..."

"You uh... You must really like Phantom."

She giggled and looked at him with a fond smile. "I love him! One day I'll marry the ghost boy, I just needed to meet him properly! I'm sure tonight he'll come to my window, and he'll sweep me up in my arms..."

Danny just frowned, his brows furrowed, and said nothing. She had put a creepy amount of thought into this. She actually seemed lost in the fantasy for a moment, in the process switching which leg she was walking on, before speaking up again. "That was why I wanted to bring you to the dance tonight! He seems to show up a lot when you're around, so I thought if I took you to the dance instead of Dash, I might get to meet him properly! And it really worked!"

Ok, well, that settled that. "Hey, Paulina, I... Think I hear an ambulance. I'm just gonna leave you _right here_ ," Danny ducked out from under her arm, leaving her propped on one leg up against a wall, "and I'll make sure a paramedic comes for you, OK?"

With another sickly sweet smile sent his way, Danny left her there.

And then he walked home.

* * *

Paulina had used him to get to Phantom.

Phantom saved them from a literal dragon.

Danny had actually stopped saving Paulina to help Phantom in return.

Danny wasn't sure whose motives he was more confused about.

It was a lot to process, and Danny had spent the last hour lying in bed trying to make sense of... _Any_ of their actions that night. For one thing, it was ridiculous to suppose he attracted ghosts, they just happened to be around Fentonworks a lot. That was the nature of having a ghost portal on the premises. And it wasn't like Phantom showed up around him _all the time_ _,_ Danny wouldn't be able to attend school without a security detail if he did.

There was tonight, sure, but once was a coincidence.

But he had to admit, her logic wasn't that much weirder than his own. Danny had actually stopped himself from rescuing _the_ Paulina Sanchez from a life-and-death situation to help a ghost. Why?

And then there was Phantom. Danny could just about understand a ghost getting territorial, but protecting humans? Based on everything he'd been warned about, it was unexpected. And Phantom had seemed so... Like he was happy to do it?

Grumbling, Danny finally pulled off his shoes and threw them at the light switch on the far wall, darkening the room. He could worry about his sanity more in the morning. And maybe, maybe tomorrow he should ask his parents about self-defense training.

Tonight when that ghost had lunged for him, if Phantom _hadn't_ been there to save– to _help_ him, well. He didn't want to think too much about that.

Danny rolled over onto his side just in time to see a black-and-white blur streak past his window. His eyes widened at the shock of recognition. Apparently the other had felt the same way, because Phantom floated back in front of the window, looking as surprised as if he hadn't known Danny lived in the giant glowing building with his name on the side of it.

The ghost gave a cautious wave. When Danny returned it, he grinned and floated closer.

With a sigh, Danny got out of bed and walked over to the window, opening it to the night air.

"...Hi."

"Hey Danny."

"Um... What are you doing here?"

The ghost chuckled. "I could ask you the same question!"

Danny raised an eyebrow and leaned out on the windowsill. Both eyes still on the ghost, he pointed at the bright neon sign hanging dangerously over the sidewalk. "I kind of live here."

"Oh." Phantom seemed taken aback. " _Oh!_ You're _that_ kind of Fenton!"

"Seriously? You're just realizing that?"

"Well, it's not an _uncommon_ name..."

In spite of himself, Danny laughed at how put-out the ghost floating in front of his window looked. "You're really weird."

"You're one to talk, Danny _Fenton_." Point taken. They both chuckled a bit before something seemed to dawn on the ghost. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Hey, um, sorry about crashing your date. Or letting her get kidnapped anyway. I try not to let people get caught up in ghost fights, but—"

"We're _definitely_ not dating. It's fine." Danny was pretty sure he kept an even tone the whole way through that sentence, but it looked like Phantom read something into it anyway.

"Ah." He dropped his arm back to his side. "...Sorry about that, then."

Danny shrugged. "There'll be more dances."

Phantom grinned and pulled a familiar metal cylinder off his belt. "Hopefully no more ghosts at the next dance, hey?" He flipped it into the air and caught it in his other hand. "Speaking of which, do you know if your parents are in their lab?"

"They're asleep, why?" Danny frowned at the object the ghost was holding. There was a sticker on the side of it that looked an awful lot like it said 'Fenton'. "Did... You take that from my parent's lab?"

The ghost just laughed. "Goodnight, Danny Fenton." He dove straight through the concrete. Whatever the specter was doing down there, he never did find out, but the ghost alarm went off half a minute later.

Danny stayed at the window long enough to see the black and white blur shoot back out of the ground and off into the night sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What on earth am I doing writing a romance? I'm the least qualified person to be doing this.


	2. The Museum

The doorbell rang, and Danny had a brief spike of panic in front of the bathroom mirror. She was early, she was early by at least...

Danny extracted his left hand from the complicated process of tying a tie and checked his watch; he was late, he was late by at least five minutes.

With a sigh, he left the bathroom, pulling the tie off over his head and throwing the knotted mess into his bedroom as he passed. Last year, his dad had helped him tie it. He'd looked at his son in the bathroom mirror, clapped him on the shoulder, and said with the kind of pride that made Danny blush that this was the day he became a man. This year, it was just another high school dance.

The doorbell rang again.

"I've got it, don't worry..." he called out to nobody in particular, running down the stairs. Apparently part of _already_ having become a man meant nobody else would get the door when his date showed up earl— On time, actually, as he corrected himself.

He tried one last time to flatten his windswept hair a bit with no success and opened the door.

Valerie Gray smirked at him as he struggled to find words. They'd both been fighting the Box Ghost not quite 40 minutes prior, and honestly, she had no business looking this good when Danny had barely had time to shower. She was wearing the most gorgeous red dress he'd ever seen, alternately hugging curves and draping flatteringly on her as she leaned casually against the door frame. She was practically glowing. Paired with black silk gloves and high-heeled shoes, it looked somehow familiar...

"Whoa, Val, is that... Your ghost hunting suit?"

She smiled toothily. "Not gonna lie Fenton, I spent a week figuring out how to control its shape. You clean up pretty well yourself," she added, running a hand over a lapel on his jacket, "although I think most people leave the top button undone when they can't figure out how to tie a tie."

Danny chuckled and undid his shirt collar. "Was I that obvious? I tried printing out instructions, but those things are _complicated_."

"Man, you're lucky you don't have to operate women's clothing." She clicked her heels together and a hoverboard materialized under her, propelling her into the air. She offered him a hand up, which he gladly accepted.

"I don't think there are many shoes that need an FAA clearance, Val."

"Pfft. Just hold on, Fenton."

He gripped around her midsection, the two sharing one more warm smile before flying off, destined for the Homecoming Dance.

Nothing was going to come between them and having a good time tonight. Danny was sure of it.

* * *

They danced for almost an hour until they both mutually needed a break. Danny was leaning far back in a chair, his feet kicked up on another. Valerie had gone to freshen up and he was taking full advantage of the chance to relax; it had been tiring avoiding her feet, but the year of training had done wonders for his coordination.

Peering up at the ceiling, Danny could just about see the seam of new and old paint, between the old wall and the patch job.

He supposed he should have been thankful for the disaster that was last year's dance. If it _hadn't_ gone disastrously badly, he might not have taken up ghost hunting. He might not have met Valerie. Maybe this wouldn't have worked out so well. After all, it was easy to spend time together when Amity Park's ghost hunting community was limited to 5 people, counting himself.

Well.

Four people and one ghost.

The chair under his feet was kicked out from under him, bringing him back down to earth with a small yelp.

"Caught you daydreaming, Fenton." Valerie giggled and sat down next to him at the table. "We've got to work on your situational awareness."

"Hey, I've come a long way since that night," he said, motioning to the wall.

Her smile faded considerably. "I wish I had known back then what a pain in the neck that ghost was going to be later on. I would have been hot on your heels and ended its miserable existence right then and there."

Danny just leaned back, saying nothing. He didn't really want to have this conversation again.

After a few moments, the anger seemed to have left Valerie. "Sorry. That's not exactly... 'Dance' conversation. I'll save it for work later." She nudged him in the side, and he smiled back with a lopsided grin.

"It's fine. It's just been a long week. I want to pretend to be normal teenagers for a couple of hours."

Danny had hoped to minimize the ghost hunting talk, but it _was_ hard to "be normal" when that was almost all you did in your free time. Obsessiveness was an occupational hazard. On the other hand, given the hits their social lives had taken in the last year, neither of them would have been here at all if they hadn't had a shared interest in not being alone tonight.

So, maybe it made sense Valerie would be sympathetic. "...I think I know something that'll help with that. Do you want to get out of here?"

"What'd you have in mind?"

"How about the classic horror movie marathon at the multiplex?"

"Well, I like this plan so far. What's playing tonight?"

"Dracula and Frankenstein, I think."

"...the pre-Hays Code classics, or one of the lame sequels?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Fenton."

Danny stood and held out a hand. "Ok, so we definitely need to fix that."

Valerie smiled and took it. "It's a date."

The theater was only a few short blocks away, so they opted to walk. For a few minutes, neither sophomore broke the silence of the cool autumn evening, although Danny found himself going over his interrupted chain of thoughts again and again.

He should just say something.

He'd run into dozens of firefights with Val in the past, so why did talking on the way to the movies make him _more_ nervous?

"You know Val, I'm glad we made time for this."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. Just hanging out."

Valerie scoffed. "Is that what we're doing."

" _Dating_."

"...is _that_ what we're doing?"

"I... Hope so? That was a shot in the dark."

"I haven't really put much thought into it—"

"Oh, well, that's—"

"I'm not saying _no_ , just that I wouldn't want it to get in the way of what we've got right now. I like working with you, Fenton. We've done a lot of good in the last five months. More than I think either of us would have in a lifetime, otherwise."

Danny chuckled. "Don't worry, there's no scenario where I'm giving up the ghost hunting. I just hope we can also make time... Y'know, outside of combat."

"Well, my point is that you can date without _dating_. 'Dating' makes it sound so... Long-term."

"Is long term bad?"

"No, just not what I want to sign up for when we're on our first _actual_ night out."

Danny jogged backward so he could grin toothily back at her. "Ah, so that's the problem. Did I wait too long to ask?"

Val scoffed at that. "Don't start getting weird regrets, Fenton. You do the best you can with what you know at the time. You move on. If you look back thinking about what you know _now_ you'll drive yourself crazy." She was looking past him slightly as she said it.

"Hey, hey, just a joke, that's all. I promise not to get all 'o ye wasted hours' on you or whatever." He held up his hands mock-defensively and returned to walking alongside her, as they arrived outside the multiplex. "Y'know Val, I didn't take you for a _carpe diem_ type."

"That's perspective for you, I guess. Now, how about we _carpe_ some tickets?"

Before they even made it to the box office, a scream issued from inside the building. A particular kind of scream they both knew too well. Others followed it.

Danny's good humor evaporated. "Val, I'll go on ahead while you get changed. Meet you inside."

Parting with a nod, the hunter pressed his way through the crowd of people suddenly rushing through the front doors. Inside the lobby, he pressed up against a wall behind a standee for a John Carpenter remake and waited for the crowd to pass; hot on their heels, shambling out of the theater, he saw it.

Frankenstein's monster.

...sort of.

It seemed too fake to be the "real thing". It was completely grayscale and glowing, with a noticeable film grain about it that obscured any fine detail in its features. In the lobby lights, it almost looked like a 3D image from a sketchy old projector, without the cheap cardboard glasses.

But it was real enough to the people running from it, as it lumbered along behind the stragglers, grasping wildly just above their heads as they ducked and weaved away from its outstretched hands. And it looked like it could do real enough damage.

Danny took a moment to collect himself and grabbed his ectoblaster out of its holster beneath his suit jacket. He'd taken to carrying it daily, partially because a ghost could attack at any time, and partially because Valerie had insisted. With a deep breath, he stepped out into the lobby and ran after the monster through the doors outside.

And ran straight into Valerie, disguised and fully armed as The Red Huntress.

Neither of them was prepared for the impact, and they crumpled into a heap on the sidewalk as her hoverboard floated lazily away from them.

"Ugh, Fenton... I was just coming to get you." She clambered to her feet and hauled him up by one arm. "Where's the ghost?"

"...you mean you didn't see it?" he asked, brushing the dust off himself, "It just left the theater."

They heard a low groan from a dark corner under the marquee. The wayward hoverboard had just hit something on the leg.

That something lunged for it stupidly, tripped on its own feet, and landed on top of it. Registering the input, the hoverboard started flying erratically out into traffic, and in what must have been a panic the monster clutched onto it with both arms as it was catapulted into the sky and out of sight.

"At least we can track it?" Danny suggested.

Valerie groaned in exasperation, but took the advice, checking the readout on her suit's wrist-mounted computer. "Looks like it just crash-landed at the Museum of Natural History."

"2 blocks over?"

"That's the one. Let's go, and try not to run into me this time, OK Fenton?"

They ran in near-total silence. Danny's face was still burning with embarrassment when they arrived at the imposing concrete structure. The building was a mass of blocks and sharp lines, built in the 60s with the intention of seeming as unwelcoming to visitors as possible. Or so it seemed to Danny, anyway. One of the sets of doors at the squat entrance was broken inward, what remained of a bright red hoverboard hanging halfway out a window, and Valerie ran handily up the flights of steps while Danny puffed behind her.

He arrived at the entrance slightly winded. Valerie held a finger to her lips and he tried to control his breathing as she slowly inched inside the thoroughly broken doors; Danny noted as they passed that the wrecked metal loosely hanging onto its hinges was initially intended to be a "pull" door. The ghost must have hit at some considerable speed.

A trail of ectoplasm led from a pile of broken glass further into the lobby. He tapped Valerie on the shoulder; she looked at him inquiringly. He pointed to the ectoplasm on the floor, and she nodded in understanding. The uncontrolled flight had done most of their work for them.

They didn't even have to look that hard for it.

The trail of ectoplasm got thinner as the ghost had apparently recovered enough to walk properly, but it was still easy to follow.

And they found it curled up in a corner. It was flickering more than it had been previously as if it was ready to fall apart at the seams, and it seemed it hadn't noticed their presence yet.

Valerie turned to him with a predatory grin that Danny wasn't sure he liked, even when it wasn't aimed at him in particular. He tried to keep his voice as low as possible. "Val, play it cool. It's weak. We can get it in a thermos without a fight."

"I'm just going to make sure it can't get away."

Danny realized a moment late what weapon she was drawing and quickly scrambled to get the thermos off his belt. He was dimly aware that Valerie was shouting at the monster as he tried to turn the thermos on, although for the third time that week, it seemed completely unresponsive.

He saw an arc of fire shooting from Valerie's flamethrower, completely surrounding the monster in its corner, and incidentally torching most of the shelves of pamphlets the museum had left out. The thermos had to work before this got more out of control; Danny tried what had worked last time, which was to give it a solid whack against the ground in the hope of at least _temporarily_ fixing whatever was faulty in its delicate inner workings.

The monster had backed away from the fire until its back was against the wall, scrambling away from the heat. It was clearly terrified, its image destabilizing further, before disappearing entirely in a wash of light. Where Frankenstein had stood, there was now a humanoid blob of unfocused lamplight.

"You can trap it _any time now_ , Fenton!"

"Just a sec Val, stupid thing is acting up again..." Danny was frowning at the thermos in his hands, still unresponsive after all the percussive maintenance he could muster up in the heat of the moment. He was nearly ready to just throw it at the ghost and hope for the best when he spotted what looked like a projectionist's cue mark on the figure's shoulder.

As the flames died down, the blob of light split into two, now tinted gray. The details of each filled in quickly, the hunters catching glimpses of fins and bandages before eventually, the shapes snapped into sharp focus; he and Valerie were standing face-to-face with the Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Mummy. The two monsters spared each other a glance before shooting off toward opposite ends of the museum.

"Great, a double feature. Should we split up?"

Valerie nodded. "We'll cover more ground that way. My suit has a rebreather, so I'd better take the aquarium."

Danny grinned. "If you need me, I'll be in the Egypt wing."

"And when you need _me_ , I'll already be back here in the lobby."

"You're on, Gray. How hard can one mummy be?"

* * *

Danny was beginning to think that the hardest part about 'one mummy' might just be finding it.

The Egyptian wing was built to resemble a pharaoh's tomb, and Danny had to hand it to the architect; they'd _very_ successfully recreated the labyrinthine feel of the real thing. The major difference being that instead of spike traps, all the obvious paths seemed to lead back to the museum gift shop.

That gift shop, fortunately, had a large-scale wall map, but its use for navigation was limited. All it seemed to tell him, really, was that he had only managed to check 20% of the rooms in the mammoth installation.

He'd give the "Embalming Room" one more try, maybe. It looked as though there was a tiny hallway leading off of it to something called the "Hall of the Dead", which sounded on-brand for the mummy at the very least. That seemed to be important to the movie monster, given it had chosen the Egyptian Wing, instead of... The Hall of Presidents, say. A nice wide open area where Danny could have found it immediately. Almost literally anywhere else in the museum, really, he thought with a sigh.

Danny wondered how Valerie was doing. From what he could recall the layout of the aquarium was at least far more straightforward, although he couldn't help but worry about the water hazards. Not that he thought Valerie couldn't handle it, very much the opposite; he was almost more worried about the fish. With any luck, it would be a quick fight, and she wouldn't... Drag it out.

She was very determined. He liked that about her. Sometimes though there was a trace of something beyond duty in her eyes that he wasn't sure he liked as much. Of course, ghosts had caused damage to her life that he wasn't sure he'd forgive any more readily in her position, but still. Sometimes the determination bordered on mania. The duty bordered on vengeance.

Maybe that was why they were good together. He could balance out her worse impulses. Maybe.

He shook himself from his thoughts; he'd almost automatically ended up back in the embalming room, for the fifth time that night. The exhibit was menacing in the dark. Reflecting the moon through the skylights overhead, the glass eyes in the room's many mannequins seemed to follow him as he walked.

Danny grabbed a glowstick from his suit jacket and cracked it, giving it a shake. It cast its dim green light on the hieroglyphics lining the walls, which he inspected carefully, looking for some sign of a door. He walked around the perimeter checking the walls, nearly tripping over a pedestal holding an informational plaque.

He spared it a glance; the information seemed to concern a goddess called Maat, who based on the photo included was apparently important enough to deserve a massive statue in her image. Although... The photo didn't look like it was taken in Egypt, it was clearly a museum piece. It actually looked very familiar.

Danny turned around and saw its larger-than-life form on the other side of the room. The photographer must have been standing nearly where he was when the photo was taken. Even in the dim lighting, it was possible to see that it somehow looked slightly different now than it had at the time of the photo.

He compared the photo carefully by glowstick light to the genuine article before he spotted it; to the right of Maat's staff, a glowing exit sign could be seen, partially obscured by the statue.

With a renewed smile, he crossed the room and found the darkened sign above a closed door.

It opened with a click that reverberated somewhat more ominously than he might have liked through the cavernous room.

Well, he'd gotten this far, and nothing had attacked him yet. He stepped through the door and into the narrow hallway, which was populated on one side with exhibits he supposed were meant to explain the ancient Egyptians' idea of the path to the afterlife. All he could determine was that it had something to do with boats before the overwhelming smell of ozonated air struck him.

There was a ghost nearby, its aura completely overpowering the museum's natural smell of empty, filtered air. It smelled like a thunderstorm, or bottled water, mixed with something almost cloyingly sweet; something like black licorice or maybe strong basil. It kept getting stronger right until he turned a corner and walked straight into something moving.

This time he was prepared. Danny dropped his glowstick, kicked out the ghost's leg from under them, and had drawn his ectogun before he could even see if it was the mummy or not.

It was not.

It was Phantom.

The ghost was on the ground, groaning in pain. "Did anybody get the plate number of that bus?"

"...hi, Phantom."

The ghost kid looked up at him with an exasperated expression. He couldn't actually sit up, with Danny pinning him to the ground with one knee. He looked at it meaningfully. "Do you mind?"

"Oh, uh, sorry." He removed his knee and sheepishly held out a hand to pull the ghost up. Phantom took him up on the offer; he was surprisingly light.

"So, Danny Fenton, huh?" The ghost dusted himself off by hand, although Danny was very aware the ghost was more than capable of phasing any dust off. "It's been a while. What brings you here?"

"Oh, uh, I'm on a date with V- uh, The Red Huntress."

"Pfft, you totally say her name like you're capitalizing all the words in it."

"...Sorry, what?"

"Never mind. You just sound like you're not used to saying it yet." Phantom chuckled slightly. When he saw that Danny had turned beet red, a visible realization suddenly dawned on the specter. "...oh, dang, you _aren't_ , are you? Am I interrupting your _first date?_ "

Danny nodded.

" _Again_?"

Danny nodded, again.

"Wow, sorry Danny. On the plus side I've heard you're in the ghost hunting business now, so maybe you two can turn this into a fun couple's activity?"

Danny suddenly noticed Phantom had been putting more distance between them as he'd been talking. He powered down his ectogun and returned it to its holster under his jacket. "Well, you say that. That's why we're here. We were tracking a ghost from the movie theater, and when it got in here it split in two. Valerie is chasing a giant fish, and I'm after a mummy."

Phantom nodded. "That must be the one that tripped my ghost sense. I was just flying by and thought I'd check it out. Any ideas where it might be? This place is a maze even when you can go through walls."

"I'm thinking it's probably in the Hall of the Dead—"

"Cool, it's on-brand!"

"—which is back the way you came a bit."

Phantom gestured graciously for Danny to take the lead. "After you, Danny Fenton." He had said it like it was a joke, but he was pretty sure Phantom just didn't want a ghost hunter behind him. He couldn't fully say he blamed the ghost for that preference, either.

...More importantly, Phantom was walking. Like, actually walking. On the ground. This ghost was very strange. Danny was still listening to the confusing footsteps when their owner spoke up.

"So... I'm kind of dying to know. You said you tracked this ghost here from a movie theater. How exactly did it manage to give two of Amity Park's best human ghost hunters the slip?"

"Oh, uh, funny story about that..."

"Trouble in paradise?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Danny stopped mid-step, wheeling around to face the ghost, who stumbled to a sudden stop to avoid running straight into the hunter.

Phantom held up placating hands. "Nothing, I'm just saying, I haven't seen how you fight, but I've seen Valerie _plenty_ , and uh... Sometimes you get a feeling somebody won't play nice with others?"

"I do _just fine_ , thanks."

"I'm sure you do, just..." The ghost visibly struggled to find some words. "Well, sorry. Anyway, if it wasn't that, what was it?"

"Oh, uh, this thing." Danny pulled the thermos off his belt, his recently bruised ego ignoring how Phantom tensed up at the motion in the moment before Danny tossed it to him.

He caught it one-handed as if it might bite him. "Um... What's wrong with your soup thermos?"

"I _know_ you know what it is, Phantom, I saw you use one last year. This one though, well, about half the time it traps ghosts. The other half of the time it can barely manage to keep coffee hot. I can't figure out what's up with it."

"You mean aside from the filthy ectoplasm gunking up the reservoir?"

"...aside from the what?"

Phantom pulled a nearly-hidden plug on the side of the thermos, grimacing as he shook out some awful looking moss-green sludge. "Well, there's your problem. You probably need to change the lab's ecto-filtrator again." A spark seemed to jump between the ghost's hand and the thermos before the latter audibly whirred back to life. Satisfied, Phantom tossed it back to Danny. "There. Should be good to go."

"Uh, thanks." Danny couldn't quite take his eyes off the thermos. It did seem... Undamaged. He clipped it back onto his belt without another word.

They walked in a careful silence for a few paces before something occurred to Danny. "Hey, Phantom, can I ask you something?"

"You can definitely _ask_ , I just might not answer you."

"I told you plenty!"

"And it was very kind of you. Seriously, just ask."

"How many ghosts do you think you've hunted this week?"

Phantom let out a sigh of relief. "Man, I really thought you were going to ask me a bunch of boring questions about how much time I spend in your basement—"

"I didn't think it was worth asking."

"Good choice. But... _This_ week? 17, I think. You?"

"Uh, well, this one makes 7."

"Respectable. I mean, it's less than me, but—"

"I wasn't trying to make it a contest—"

"Well, good, because you would have lost."

Danny shot the ghost a dirty look over his shoulder. "My point was, how come I never see you around? It seems like you and I haven't been at the same ghost fight since last year with the dragon, unless I'm forgetting one."

"...not to point out the obvious, but would you believe that I normally avoid ghost hunters?"

"So... What do you call this?"

He looked back again in time to catch Phantom shrug. "Well, I did say 'normally'. _Normally_ , ghost hunters probably wouldn't pick me up off the ground. And I know at least one that _definitely_ would have taken that shot at point-blank range. So, what do you want to call this?"

"I guess now I can call it 'saving myself from fighting another 17 ghosts this week'." They arrived at the end of a hallway, in front of a set of double doors. Danny leaned as casually as he could against a wall, although Phantom still kept his distance nearer the opposite door. "That, and uh... After you helped me out last year, I'm not sold on your bad press."

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "Even though Valerie thinks I ruined her life?"

"...I know how she can get. I'm not saying she's wrong, I'm just saying maybe it didn't go down... Exactly how she says it did."

"And I'm not saying she's crazy, I'm just saying you probably shouldn't tell her you didn't take that shot earlier."

Danny was about to reply when Phantom's hand moving toward the door handle caught his eye; he spotted something, and in a panic, just about pounced on the ghost. " _Wait!_ " he hissed, grabbing Phantom by the wrist.

The ghost looked shocked at the contact but didn't try to pull away. "Uh, sorry Phantom, I just noticed." Danny pointed at the sign on the door, barely visible by the dim, spectral glow in the otherwise darkened hallway. "See? 'Emergency Exit – Fire department will be dispatched. Violators will be fined $500.' We'll need to find another way in, it'll give away our position if an alarm sounds."

"What a horrible curse!" At Danny's confusion, Phantom grinned and twisted his arm in the hunter's grasp, grabbing him right back. "Well, let's see what's inside!"

Intangibility washed over them both, and Danny found himself pulled inside the Hall of the Dead.

When they regained corporeality, Danny got a proper look at the room. His history class had, in actual fact, just been here within the past year. Even in the dark, it was still a grand room; when entered normally (as, with the memory of visiting, Danny had finally remembered exactly how one was _meant_ to enter, through the clearly sign-marked path back to the lobby) visitors were lead through a room lined with towering columns, flanking enormous plaster statues of the gods and goddesses of Egyptian myth. It was all elaborately decorated, with cases of priceless artifacts and beautiful reproductions of frescoes unearthed decades ago.

At the center of it all, on a plinth, stood the gilded sarcophagus of Imhotep.

In front of that stood the flickering form of the immortal mummy, a malevolent smile barely visible as it raised a glowing hand wreathed in black-and-white fire.

Phantom seemed to realize what was happening before Danny did, and pulled the hunter back by the shoulders as a statue crashed down where he had been standing with enough force to crumble into pieces.

"Thanks, Phantom; is this guy telepathic or something?"

The mummy raised its hands again, swiping them down through the air, and sending the pair of obelisks that had flanked the door crisscrossing down on them; they barely had time to scramble away this time, separated from each other by the ruins of what had recently been a very carefully constructed replica. Danny almost had time to spare a sympathetic thought to the curators.

"I think you're looking for 'telekinetic', and, yes." Phantom dodged around a falling pillar, which kicked up a cloud of dust as it landed with a heavy bang inches away from his heels. "Jeez, the practical effects are a little _too_ lifelike."

Danny vaulted over the debris, landing next to the ghost. "Do you quip like this when I'm not around?"

" _Always_." Phantom grinned broadly. "I do like having an audience who appreciates it, for a change."

"Oh yeah? Where are they?"

The ghost chuckled at the joke, although it was cut short by the sound of glass breaking.

While they had been distracted, "Imhotep" had moved on the display cases, thrusting one hand through the glass and retrieving an ancient-looking golden amulet.

Danny knew it wasn't good when the mummy lowered the delicate chain around its neck. Part of that was that nothing the ghost wanted and successfully retrieved could possibly be good. Movies had taught him this much. The _other_ reason was that the ghost suddenly seemed far too... _Present_. The flicker and film-grain subsided and Imhotep looked for all the world like the contents of a freshly opened sarcophagus. Or, at least, the best possible Boris Karloff simulacrum Danny had ever seen in person.

The mummy's grin was much more terrifying without the celluloid filter, and particularly in the half-light generated by the amulet; the metal glowed an eerie green that seemed to radiate through the room, tendrils of ghostly energy crawled out across the floor from the plinth and snaked up the legs of the statues lining the hall.

Phantom floated gently off the ground, transfixed, apparently forgetting to obey gravity. Danny busied himself retrieving a length of cord from a jacket pocket before the inevitable happened. He handed one end to Phantom, who took it without looking away from a tall statue of Anubis; it turned to face them with the sound of cracking plaster, its eyes flaring an angry red.

"Hey, Phantom? _Phantom._ "

"I, uh," the ghost suddenly looked back at Danny, and then at the rope he was holding. "What's this for?"

"Giant statue fight."

" _How_ could you _possibly_ have seen this coming?"

"Don't you watch movies?! It was _obvious_. Now c'mon, tie this around its legs, and we'll take it down."

Phantom looked at the hunter like he couldn't decide if Danny was brilliant or insane. He muttered something that sounded like " _Fentons..._ " and flew off.

"And watch out for that staff!"

The warning came just in time for Phantom to dodge a side-swipe from the now mobile statue. As a weapon, Danny couldn't help but think a giant, lumbering statue wasn't particularly effective.

Phantom dodged another worthless swipe as the statue lunged after him. The ghost-proof rope had been threaded between and around both its legs, and it stumbled in its tracks, teetering in position.

Danny pulled the far end of the rope taut, giving it a sharp tug. The statue listed at a dangerous angle; Phantom flew up and behind it, hitting it with an ectoblast that pushed it over the edge. The statue finally toppled, crumbling on impact with the ground and kicking up another cloud of plaster dust that had Danny trying to shield his mouth and nose with a sleeve, and coughing deeply when he breathed a ton of it in anyway. Phantom landed next to him looking and sounding worried, but Danny couldn't hear him properly and just waved off whatever he had been asked, still coughing.

Imhotep did _not_ share Phantom's concerns. He seemed quite angry, in fact, saying something in a wheezing, smoggy voice, and in a language Danny didn't understand. The ghostly tendrils reached out from the plinth once more, and this time all the remaining statues in the room started rumbling to life.

At last, Danny sucked in a few breaths of clear air and got his breathing under control. "That's way too many to take out one by one."

"What d'you suggest?"

"He's not moving from that plinth. I think the sarcophagus is important, somehow." Unfortunately, that end of the room was where the bulk of the mummy's 'heavily armed' guard was currently residing, and the few that weren't defending their master were making their way to Danny and Phantom.

...Danny had a bad idea that involved leaving himself defenseless.

The internal battle only lasted a fraction of a second. Phantom had proven himself.

"Listen, Phantom, I'll keep these statues busy, but you just need to get to him. Knock over the sarcophagus, and I guess if something happens just use this." Danny handed over the thermos, and the ghost took it hesitantly.

"Ok, uh, good luck." He floated backward away from Danny, still looking at him with concern as he turned invisible. "And watch out for that staff!"

Danny ducked under a low-flying replica, which instead managed to take out a row of display cases in a shower of splintered oak and broken glass. He did his best to weave through the legs of the slow-moving minions, with few narrow escapes. It was definitely harder with more of them after him, but he caught a glimpse of Phantom at the front of the hall.

The ghost popped back into visibility directly behind the sarcophagus, saying something inaudible that caught the mummy's attention. It looked back, horrified, as Phantom gave the sarcophagus a hearty shove, toppling it on top of the ghost, pinning it.

The hunter hadn't expected that to stop the statues in their tracks, the few caught at weird angles falling lifelessly over, breaking off limbs as they landed. Phantom clearly hadn't expected the ghost to just _lie there,_ making token efforts to escape without going intangible.

Phantom and Danny exchanged a glance of some confusion. Danny closed the distance to the plinth while Phantom took aim and fired the thermos' containment beam.

The mummy flickered back to a void of light as it swirled around the entrance, the amulet falling to the ground as Phantom capped the thermos, handing it back to Danny. "That was... Straightforward, actually. What was up with that?"

Danny shrugged. "To be honest? No idea. But, just guessing... Maybe it just wanted to be captured in a more dramatic way than being cornered in a lobby? I mean, what else was it doing for the 40 minutes before we got here?" He looked at the thermos thoughtfully. "It's not exactly 'neutral', but I don't think it wanted to cause real damage. To people, anyway. You can't really say the same for museum exhibits."

"Do you, uh, spend a _lot_ of time trying to figure out ghosts' motivations?"

"Do you _not_?"

"Yeah, I know _I_ do, I'm just... Not used to that in humans."

Danny looked up at the ghost and realized he was being evaluated, too. Something in Phantom's eyes suggested it was a passing grade; he also noticed that Phantom hadn't felt the need to land on the floor again.

"...Well, that just leaves this." Danny raised his ectoblaster and fired at the amulet, which crumbled into dust. Phantom winced at the shot.

"We lose more priceless, ancient amulets that way."

Danny didn't feel too cut up about it and busied himself holstering his gun. "Hey, you saw what that thing could do. It was too powerful to leave it, especially unguarded."

Phantom shrugged, floating a few inches off the ground next to Danny as the latter walked through the carnage back to the lobby. "You could say the same about a lot of things," the ghost said carefully, "I probably could have leveled this whole building, or worse. Who's guarding me?"

The human stopped and looked up at the other evenly. "I know what you're trying to do there. You _could_ just ask me, y'know."

Phantom suddenly seemed to be avoiding his eye contact. "Well, I uh..." The sentence fizzled out and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

Danny crossed his arms, looking at Phantom expectantly.

"You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" Phantom sighed and leaned back against thin air. "Fine. _Fine_. Why are you trying so hard to be friendly to me?"

"I'm not 'trying hard', I'm just being friendly."

"Well, then you're literally the weirdest ghost hunter in town." Phantom leveled a skeptical look at him. "C'mon, I really want to know. What gives?"

"...Look, actions speak louder than words, alright? Whatever the... Other hunters think, you don't just talk a good talk, I've _seen_ that you're on my side. I'm assuming you must _kind of_ trust me too, or you wouldn't be just standing there. Or, floating there. Am I right?"

"...Basically, yeah. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little weird casually talking to a part-time ghost hunter."

"Trust me, I know the feeling."

"Who, me? Oh, I wouldn't call myself a 'ghost hunter'. I just like classic movies." Maybe it was just the adrenaline wearing off, but Danny chuckled at the ghost's dumb joke. Phantom beamed. "Although I never was the biggest fan of _The Mummy_ , I'm more of a _Phantom of the Opera_ guy." He waggled the fingers on his hands like he was trying to hypnotize Danny, who cracked up laughing. Eventually, Phantom couldn't stop himself, and he laughed too.

The sound of a plasma rifle charging brought them back down to earth.

Val stood in the archway between the atrium and the Egyptian wing, face set with determined eyes, which were staring down a barrel directly at Phantom's chest. "Glad we're having so much fun in here. Would you mind explaining what you think you're doing, Fenton?"

"You catch your fish, Ahab?"

"Test me again, Phantom, see what happens." Valerie had nothing but spite on her features, finger twitching towards the trigger.

Before Danny was fully aware of what he was doing, he had stepped between her and Phantom.

He was just as surprised as anyone when he did it, and before he could stop himself, he'd started talking, too. "Valerie, put the gun down."

She did not, although she did lower it. "How about you get out of the way first?"

"I'm not going to let you shoot him."

"Are we seriously doing _this_ again? He ruined my life, Danny! You may not care about that, but—"

"You mean that life that you always say you hated? With the friends who only liked you when you were rich? From everything you've told me it doesn't even sound like it was _him_ , just a dumb dog that—"

"—um, he sort of _is_ my dog. Well, actually, Cujo—"

Danny looked back with venom in his eyes, silencing the ghost with a glare, before turning back to Valerie. "But that's not the point. Phantom's probably saved the town more times we don't even know about than you and I have put together. He saved _me,_ tonight, multiple times."

Valerie scoffed at that. "Figures you'd need saving, Fenton."

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean! You stumble through fights _constantly_ , worse than your dad even. It's basically your fault we're even having this conversation right now instead of watching a movie, and I can't even trust you alone for an _hour_ without you making friends with public enemy #1!" Valerie leveled the rifle at Phantom through his chest, finger inching back toward the trigger. "So how about you do something right for a change and _get out of my way_?"

Danny planted his feet more firmly, staring back at Valerie over the gun between them. His brain was screaming at him to think about what he was doing, and he roundly ignored it, focusing on the anger that seemed to physically bubble through his chest.

Val didn't budge an inch. "...so that's the way it's gonna be, is it?"

"Yep."

A very long time seemed to pass. Possibly minutes, probably seconds.

Valerie blinked first. "...Phantom, you're lucky I don't shoot people, even when they are colossal _morons_. Next time I see you, your ass is mine, got it?"

Phantom _mercifully_ stayed quiet. It would have been a shame to have to punch him after standing up for him.

Danny didn't holster his gun until long after Valerie had left the building.

And then he slumped to the floor, propping himself up on one knee, the fight draining out of him along with most of the strength in his legs.

He heard the ghost draw in a breath behind him, and Danny just buried his face in his hand. "Whatever it is, Phantom, I really don't want to talk right now."

A cool hand touched his shoulder, a soft pressure as it gripped him slightly. "...Thanks, Danny. That's all."

And then the pressure left, with the sound of boots walking across the tile floor.

But the smell of ozone and licorice lingered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a world where Gray Ghost (is that even what you call this ship when Danny is human?) is even less functional than normal. I wasn't kidding about that content warning.


	3. The Gala

"Explain to me again why you have to go to this."

Meeting Danny's eyes over the racks of thrift shop clothing, Sam Manson sighed. "My parents are entertaining a bunch of boring business and government people. It's going to be some kind of big all-night summer gala type of thing; a place to see and be seen for the parochial bourgeoisie, y'know? Hey, what do you think about black pleather?" Sam held up a jacket to her shoulders experimentally, trying to guess at the fit.

"That doesn't explain why _you_ have to go, though. And I think that's real leather."

Sam hastily hung it back on the rack. "If I go, they agreed to make it a fundraiser to help conserve the Lake Eerie Watersnake."

"Is... That some kind of endangered species?"

"Well, it's technically classified as 'threatened'," she clarified, shuffling through hangers.

"Sam, if it can live in _Lake Eerie_ and survive, it would take a nuclear winter to 'threaten' it."

"Har har. It fills a lot of very important ecological niches, and several food chains could fall apart entirely if its nesting grounds can't be saved. But the point is that it's a charismatic animal—"

" _Is it?_ " Danny nearly dropped the blazer he'd been holding in surprise.

"—and that makes it a great cause to ease my parents into more philanthropy. So I'm considering this a 'for the long-term good' thing."

"Which is how they got you to agree to dress up for the occasion."

"Which is how they convinced me to bring a _date_ to the occasion, I'm still not wearing that lace... _Thing_ that my mother picked out. But I do need to wear something a bit more... Mass appeal. How do you like red on me?" She pulled up another jacket for a test fit. He liked it on her very much.

"It's a good look," he agreed."Is that the plan for me too? I'm just there for the mass appeal and long-term good?"

"You're really flattering yourself there, but," Sam suddenly slipped, somehow, under and through the heavily packed clothing, emerging in the middle of the dated suit jackets directly in front of Danny. "I think we both know that's not true. Ever since you _finally_ let Tucker and I in on your little 'secret', it made me realize how much I'd been missing you. And... _Why_ I was missing you."

"I know I should have told you about the uh, ghost hunting," he dropped to a whisper for that, although they were _very_ alone in the aisle, "from day one. But if I'd known you guys would want to help out, I would have done it a lot sooner. I... I guess I was worried you'd think I was as weird as my parents." He frowned slightly.

"Hey, I happen to _like_ weird." She thrust the jacket into his hands so she could wrap her arms loosely around his waist, pulling them closer together.

Danny had a goofy grin plastered on his face as he draped the garment over Sam's shoulders. "It's _definitely_ a good look."

* * *

When Danny arrived at the Manson summer residence in Polter Heights (because of course, the Mansons _would_ have a summer residence barely halfway across the city from their "normal" house), the sun hung low in the sky, and the rolling expanse of the front lawn was lit by the soft golden rays, playing over the festive lanterns and carefully manicured shrubs. As he walked up the driveway, he was passed by a fascinating mix of squat Volkswagens and sleek Priuses, and outlandish sportscars with European-looking branding he didn't even recognize; at one point a black sedan with tinted windows stopped in front of the valet, and a collection of serious, gruff-looking men got out on either side of a serious, elderly looking man. Whoever the VIP was, Danny was pretty sure their security detail was armed.

Either way, he was _definitely_ the only one who had walked, and when he came to the front of the red carpet that ran from the pavement to the house, the unfamiliar event staff didn't seem to know what to do with him.

He was saved from having to convince them he belonged there in his cheap, boxy jacket by Sam rushing down from the door.

She was a breath of fresh air compared to some of the more formal partygoers, low-heels, and natural makeup in a sea of pomp and flash. She'd thrown the red thrift-shop jacket over her little black dress with the sheer neckline, and paired it with a silk scarf; it was a fun look, but from one look at her eyes Danny could tell having fun that night was about the furthest thing from her mind. She barely looked at him, glancing around nervously for most of the jog down the steps.

His smile faltered a bit when, instead of a greeting, he was grabbed by the arm and pulled more the led back up to the house. "Ugh, sorry about that, they were supposed to have your name on the list. But why would they, it's not like my parents paid the _slightest_ bit of attention when I told them I was dragging you into this mess..."

"Uh, Sam? Is everything ok?"

She seemed to come back down to earth a bit and stopped to face him in the middle of the front steps. "Sorry, Danny... It's just been crazy. I didn't realize they were planning anything this big, I feel like I've been treading water all afternoon."

He pulled her into a hug. "Well, that's what I'm here for. How can I help?"

She sighed and leaned into him a bit. "I just can't do... People, right now. I need to run a message to the caterers, but... This is a weird request."

"Whatever you need, I'm here for it."

"Ok, so, I need you to go in there and be an enthusiastic, approachable-looking teenager."

Danny pulled back a bit, looking at her in confusion. "...huh?"

"See, I told you it was weird."

"I'm not saying 'no', I'm saying 'please explain why I'm not enthusiastic and approachable looking."

"You normally look like you're looking for the exits," Sam explained patiently. "But somebody needs to go in there and get the benefactors talking with the FLEW people. They've been mobbing me all afternoon."

"...flew people?" Danny broke away from her, looking confused.

"Oh, um, they're activists. Friends of the Lake Eerie Watersnake. It's the charity we're supporting tonight. To be honest, I didn't expect so many of them to be here, they're being totally cliquey in there, it's worse than a school dance. Here, let me show you..."

She led him into the house and into the hall, where he couldn't help but agree with her assessment. The room's dress code was neatly bifurcated down the middle, with considerably more expensive suits on the right and what he could only assume to be ethically sourced garments on the left.

"Ok, so just to be clear, you want me to...?"

"Literally, just stand around and be photogenic until people want to talk to you. Everyone likes a non-threatening young activist, almost as much as they like being seen next to one. Eventually, people will start talking to you, and if you can get activists and benefactors in the same conversation, just duck away when they start talking to each other, and hopefully FLEW will get some decent donations out of this."

Danny snorted. "You're the most optimistic cynic I've ever met. So that's the whole plan for the evening?"

"Only for the next hour or so. Then everyone eats dinner, listens to the governor upsell his atrocious environmental record, and leaves before cocktails. Sound good?"

"The governor is here?"

"Yeah, didn't you see the armed goons on your way in?"

"I did, I think I just underestimated your parents."

"Yeah, well, I _overestimated_ them. I really have to go sort out the vegan menu for dinner and I might be gone for a while, will you be fine in here on your own for a bit?"

He shrugged. "What could go wrong?"

* * *

Danny stood around as nonthreateningly as he could manage for a full ten minutes before anybody took the bait.

His name was Harris Winthrop, his wife was Camille, and Danny had no idea what either of them did but Harris' job seemed to involve a lot of "direct reports". Camille had a breathless enthusiasm for a famous walking tour they did annually in Northwestern Spain that Danny didn't dare try to pronounce, although he did try to ask as many intelligent follow-up questions as he could.

"So this trek, does it go to any... Beaches?" he tried, remembering that Spain was sunny.

"Oh, my no, it's all through the mountains. It's more of a pilgrimage than a sight-seeing type of affair, you know. The church actually used to require sinners to walk its length as penance," she said with a chuckle.

"That's... Wow, it must really be something."

"It certainly is," responded Harris, taking a deep swig of champagne.

It wasn't long after that before the room seemed to sense the metaphorical blood in the water. They were joined by a professor of ecology from the State University who introduced himself with his title and full name, and his wife Joan, who had smiling eyes and looked the way folk music sounds. It was then that Danny knew whatever he was doing was working.

"Have you given any thought to your studies after high school?" asked Professor Clifford Oliver McGregor.

"Uhh... Maybe chemistry?" he attempted. Chemists could be astronauts, right?

Professor Clifford Oliver McGregor laughed far louder than his neatly-trimmed beard would have implied and clapped Danny on the back. "I started in chemistry! A noble profession. My thesis was on the production chains of volatile gases in alkaline fens. Did you know—" and from there Danny didn't fully understand the meaning of any single sentence or even most words.

Maybe not chemistry, then.

The conversation eventually moved away from vocations and vacations and Danny's presence was less and less required to keep things moving. As subtly as he could, he slipped away, taking a deep breath by a burbling fondue pot. He felt like he was surfacing after a long dive.

A flash of white caught his attention from across the room.

He found Phantom, who had stuck his upper body through a ceiling, peering around the room from the shadows. His normally messy, windswept hair was drooping toward the floor, and Danny got an unobstructed view of the ghost's troubled face, keen eyes roving over the crowd.

Their gazes met. The ghost gave him a huge upside-down smile and a wave, which Danny tried to subtly return.

Not subtly enough. He caught a weird look from one of the event staff, who walked over to Danny from halfway across the room to present a tray full of what might have been oysters wrapped in bacon. To avoid making things any worse, he was forced to take one with a smile but held it at arm's length as soon as the server resumed her regular path through the crowd.

When he looked back up, Phantom seemed to be suppressing a fit of giggles. His eyes were still full of laughter at Danny's expense, although the expression became more sympathetic when the latter gagged a bit on the disgustingly chewy hors d'oeuvre. When he had Danny's eye again, Phantom motioned with a thumb off to one side of the room. Danny nodded, and with a renewed grin the ghost popped back up/down through the ceiling and out of sight.

Aside from a disappointed group of financiers who had been about to approach him, he made a clean getaway, but he only got a few feet down the hallway before a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks. "Daniel Fenton. Just the person I wanted to see." Danny swallowed reflexively at the use of his legal name in an unfriendly tone and turned to face the source of his blood pressure spike.

Mr. Manson could be imposing in a sweater vest, but wearing a deep blue suit, red tie, and slight frown, Danny was worried he was about to get fired. He didn't even have a job.

The elder Manson held him by the shoulder at arm's length for a moment, looking him up and down. "This is what I was afraid of. Come with me."

For the second time that night, he was dragged by the wrist across the expansive house. He had no idea where they were going, but it was far enough that the decor had changed from a bright and airy Spanish mission style to a dark Neo-colonial, and Danny couldn't pin down when or where the change had occurred. Eventually, he was lead into what could be considered a closest, owing to all the clothing lining the walls, except that it was the size of his family's entire living room.

When his wrist was released, he didn't quite know what to do, so he stood in the middle of it all. Mr. Manson certainly didn't stop, continuing to the far side of the room and opening a set of drawers.

He didn't turn to face Danny before speaking.

"My daughter wanted you to be here tonight."

It wasn't definitely a question, but he felt the need to say something, and he went with "Yes, sir." He'd never been asked to call Mr. Manson "sir", but it was like the word came out involuntarily before the period.

"Do you care about snakes, Daniel?"

"Uh..."

"That's what I thought."

The drawer was shut with a quiet "snap" and Mr. Manson turned around, marching back to him holding a strange white stick, measuring tape, and a plush tomato full of pins. He stopped so abruptly that Danny felt a breeze that went well with the deeply critical gaze he was receiving.

"Do you care about _Samantha_?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"In that case, your woeful lack of preparation is neglect rather than disdain. How comforting." Mr. Manson set down his motley collection and took his jacket off, handing it to the air just past Danny's right arm. He wondered if he should be taking the garment, before a previously unseen and unheard butler surged forth and took it away, hanging it on a cedar hanger across the room. In the meantime, Mr. Manson had rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and unfurled the measuring tape. "Hold your arms out."

Danny silently did so. The material on his thrifted jacket bunched up around the shoulders.

Mr. Manson tutted. "No, to your sides, and not so high. Like so–" The man adjusted Danny's arms, who in turn did his best not to move a muscle once they were in place.

"I'm going to give you a piece of advice," he continued, now taking quick measurements from Danny's shoulders to his wrists. "You only get one first impression. That can either be positive or negative. In my years of management, I can say with certainty–" he paused the sentence as he grabbed a few pins, holding them in his teeth, but somehow not impeding his speech when he resumed, "that I remember every employee who ever walked through my office door and made a good impression. The rest, I just don't know. I suspect I forgot about them."

The extra slack at the bottom of his jacket's sleeves was pinned up, and a few strange markings had been made in what was evidently a chalk pencil.

By the time Mr. Manson made it back to Danny's front, he had an intense look in his eye.

"You don't want to be forgotten, do you?"

It felt like the deepest threat on his well-being he'd ever received, and that included Pariah Dark. "No, sir," he managed.

"Good." He smiled, and the change felt like whiplash. "If you would...?" he added, gesturing to the button securing the jacket closed. As soon as Danny fumbled it open, the whole jacket was lifted off his shoulders from behind and a glass with an inch of amber liquid was placed in his hand by the butler; Danny hadn't actually seen him leave the far corner of the room, let alone mix a cocktail. He suspected ghost powers, but Mr. Manson didn't seem to notice, instead wrapping a measuring tape around Danny's stomach.

"28 inches around the midsection, Geoffrey," he called out to seemingly anyone. "Now, Daniel, if you want to make a good impression, you really will have to pay closer attention to your appearance. Formal or informal, it's worth thinking about what you are telling people before you ever speak to them. Keep that in mind, and I think you'll see a difference in how people treat you."

Danny had no idea how to respond to that. He doubted Sam would agree, and he wasn't sure he did either, but that seemed like the path of greater resistance to getting out of this conversation. "Um... Thank you. I'll remember that."

"See that you do. I know this evening is very important to Samantha." Mr. Manson abruptly frowned at him. "How old are you exactly? When was your birthday? Aren't you still in high school?"

"Uh... April. I had my birthday. I'm sixteen."

" _Drinking underage_ ... That just won't do at all in this company." Mr. Manson tutted and grabbed the glass from Danny's hand. "Honestly, I don't know _what_ you were thinking. Now, try this on."

Wordlessly, the butler (Geoffrey, apparently) appeared at Danny's right holding his jacket, helping him put it on. It fit a lot better.

"Much better. Believe me, you don't need alcohol to stand out. Dress to impress and people _will_ take note."

It almost sounded fatherly, which caught Danny off-guard. He didn't have a script for Sam's dad being kind. "Um... Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it. Now, you'd really better get back out there before anybody notices you're gone."

He really didn't need to be told twice. Friendly or not, Danny was eager to put a few interior design fads between him and Sam's parents. He had no idea how long he'd just spent in Mr. Manson's company, but it was longer than he wanted when he was supposed to be meeting Phantom.

"Sure. Thanks, again."

Mr. Manson waved him out of the room and took a sip of the drink. The last thing he heard as he took off down the hall was half-shouted praise of the cocktail. He broke into a jog.

Danny had no idea where to go, really, so he just picked a direction and went until the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

It was the middle of a dark-green-and-brown hallway, in a wing of the house that seemed to be designed to invoke a banker's office or maybe a formerly-trendy coffee shop. Danny stopped mid-stride, looking around, but the smell of ozone and licorice was his only warning before he was blindsided by an invisible figure and shoved intangibly through a dark walnut door.

They were alone in the room (a study? Did houses still have studies?), the sounds of the party reduced to a murmur. Phantom floated half a foot in front of him, bobbing slightly, just high enough that Danny had to look up to make proper eye contact. He was just about to tell the ghost how happy he was to see him when the grin was swept off the specter's face, replaced by a strange look.

It made the hair stand up on the back of Danny's neck. "What's wrong?"

"I just..." Phantom made an ineffective hand gesture.

His eyes were raking up and down over him. It was nowhere near as bad as standing out in the reception hall had been, but it was still a bit uncomfortable until the ghost recovered the gleam of mischief that had been gone from his eyes. "You didn't have to change just to talk to me, you know that right?"

Phantom chuckled. It was warmer than Danny remembered, although the last time he'd seen the ghost they'd been busy fighting a mummy, so maybe that was understandable. Laughing in a quiet room, and without the ringing in his ears that usually followed Danny for a few hours after a fight, he could hear it more clearly. Phantom's laugh had a slight echo to it like it was really two people laughing at _almost_ the same time. But it wasn't unpleasant. It was just... Very "Phantom".

"...Danny? _Danny?_ "

Danny jerked back to awareness. Phantom had landed and was gently shaking him on the shoulder. "Huh? Oh, uh, sorry, I'm absolutely _burnt_ on human interaction right now. I've been schmoozing with weirdos since I got here."

Phantom took a few steps back and leaned, grinning, against a broad desk that was far too uncluttered. "Do you have a separate budget for ghost interaction, or am I going to have to try this again in an hour or two?"

"It's fine, you're not a stranger. Or talking about peat bogs or pilgrimages or whatever."

The ghost tilted his head to one side, questioningly.

"Nevermind. Like I said, weird party. This is actually the same jacket I was wearing earlier, but Mr. Manson had it _tailored_."

"...who tailors a jacket in the middle of a party?"

"I think he might just really like clothes. His butler only needed like a minute to do it, too, so I'm guessing this isn't the first time it's happened.

At that moment, it looked like Phantom had a lot of things he wanted to say all at once. Actually, he was looking at Danny's jacket like he was seeing the whole evening (and maybe especially the Manson family) for the first time. "Well, that's..."

"A little bit overkill?"

"I mean, that's one way to put it. But then again if you look around here I guess I shouldn't be surprised?" Phantom pulled his eyes away from Danny's newly tapered figure and gestured around the room. It looked like it had been pulled straight out of an Agatha Christie story. "I've never _actually_ seen this many leather-bound books in one place in real life. Do you think he bought them by the yard?"

Danny ducked his head a bit to hide his smile. There were other things to talk about. Focus, Fenton. "Probably. But um. What are you doing here?"

Phantom looked confused for a moment, before seeming to remember he was the one who had flagged Danny down.

"Oh! Right. I think there might be a ghost here." Danny raised an eyebrow. Phantom waved it off. "Aside from me I mean. Anyway. Normally I can pin-point a ghost's location fairly easily, within a radius. But this one is either hiding itself really well, or... Doing other, worse things."

"Are you thinking it might be a possession?"

"Maybe, I might not find them right away if they're overshadowing a guest. Or maybe this ridiculous house is a little _too_ overkill and I just can't get close enough to it."

"So what's the plan?"

"...Plan?" Phantom said it like he was trying the word on for size and didn't like how it fit.

"There's a ghost on the loose. You must have some kind of plan, right?"

"Ok, sure. My plan is to track down _Danny Fenton_ , ghost hunting prodigy, and hope that if we both wander around long enough, it'll turn up eventually. Then we'll kick its butt and capture it in a thermos."

Danny gave him a hard, searching look. He was actually being serious, wasn't he?

Without having voiced the question, Phantom smiled and shrugged. "Honestly, that usually works out OK for me."

Danny rubbed his temples to chase away a sudden headache.

* * *

Dr. Archibald was probably the closest FLEW had to a charismatic leader. At least, she was the most normal person Danny had talked to all night, and as president of the organization, she'd wanted to thank him for his efforts.

At least someone had. He hadn't seen Sam for like an hour.

"It has been such a boon to the organization, really. We haven't had a turn out like this at any of our events since 1999."

"What happened in 1999?" Danny asked.

"We were founded in 1999, right when the poor creatures were listed as threatened." She seemed to smile fondly at the memory. "But that all changes tonight! Besides the fundraising, a little birdie told me that the governor is going to be making a special announcement at the end of his speech." She tapped the side of her nose for emphasis.

"Oh."

"Since you ask – keep this between us, of course – he'll be designating the shoreline of Gull Island as restricted for human development, so as not to impede the watersnake's nesting grounds. Fantastic news, isn't it?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah, that's really great."

He'd completely run out of things to say, but fortunately, the good doctor seemed to have met somebody's eye over his head. "Oh, I see Professor McGregor is here! I really must go say hello. But thank you again for all your hard work tonight, Danny!"

The smile he received as she left might have been genuinely heartwarming, but he was barely paying attention; he was in threat-detection mode.

After a glance to be sure he wasn't near anyone, Danny carefully tapped the earpiece's transmit button. "Hey, did she—"

The radio squawked a bit before Phantom cut in abruptly. _"Use the code names! Over."_

Danny sighed. "Dragon Slayer, this is Huntsman. Did she sound overshadowed to you?"

He waited for a reply while helping himself to some punch.

Then he tapped the transmit button again, adding "Over."

 _"Huntsman, this is Dragon Slayer;"_ came the reply, clearly aiming for Tom Cruise in _Top Gun_ , but landing somewhere closer to how Tucker sounded when they had played _Doomed_ , _"uh... No idea. Did_ _she_ _sound_ _strange to you? Over."_

"Literally, everyone here sounds strange!" Danny practically shouted, attracting some weird looks. Blushing, he continued at a much lower volume. "How am I supposed to tell if they're stranger than usual?"

_"...you didn't say ov—"_

"I'm not going to say 'over' every time."

There was a sigh over the radio. Danny almost rolled his eyes; Phantom had just intentionally turned on his microphone so Danny could hear him sigh. _"It'd probably be really obvious. Ghosts tend to be kinda jumpy when they overshadow people. So that's—"_

"15 people _probably_ not hosting a ghost." Danny got some more weird looks and strolled as casually as he could a little further from the refreshments table. "Like 70 left to go."

_"Can I ask a question?"_

"I think I owe you one from last time. Sure thing."

_"What are you even doing here? You're right, these people are weird. I didn't think this was your crowd."_

"It's not really. I'm here as my girlfriend's fake date."

Phantom was quiet for a long moment. He was either too close to people to want to talk, or _"I'm not sure I... Uh... Ok, first of all, how is it a fake date if she's your girlfriend?"_

Danny blinked. That was actually a very good point. "Ok, so it's a real date with my real girlfriend, but she wouldn't have invited me if it wasn't to get her parents to support the charity. Make sense?"

 _"I mean... No, but, second point; does_ _this mean I'm crashing another one of your dates with ghost stuff?"_

"Uh... I guess so," Danny replied.

 _"Freaking_ again _??"_

"Is that a 'thing'? You're acting like it's a 'thing'."

_"I literally only talk to you when I'm crashing your dates with ghost stuff!"_

"Well, who's fault is that? We could talk normally literally any time, I just never see you around."

 _"Are you trying to invite me to follow you around or something?_ _Because it worked out so well for both of us the last time we hung out together?"_

This time, Danny did roll his eyes.

_"Saw that."_

"Creep." He scanned the ceiling looking for Phantom but found no sign of him. Must be invisible, then.

_"That's why I don't follow you around."_

"If you did, it'd make it less weird when we do bump into each other."

_"We're three for three Danny, it's maximally weird."_

"It's just a coincidence, right? I mean, it's not like you're doing this on purpose."

There was another pause.

"...tell me you aren't doing this on purpose."

 _"No! It's just weird that you're taking this so well. It's deeply_ _weird, actually. ...Hey,_ you _aren't doing this on purpose somehow, are you?"_

"How would I even— Hey!" Danny was grabbed on the shoulder with an iron grip and hauled backward, a few steps down a hall and into a kitchen that gleamed with commercial-grade appliances and residential-grade Fauxtalian wall art.

Pamela Manson's heels clicked against the tile floor as she dragged him across the room, eventually letting go so she could look down on him with a deeply upset expression. She had her hands on her hips like he was 3 years old and covered in mud.

"Daniel."

"Uh, hi Mrs. Manson."

"Are you going to college, Daniel?"

He didn't know where this was coming from or where it was going, but it seemed mostly rhetorical anyway. "Yes?"

"When Sammykins suggested this little get-together, I was overjoyed. Activism looks excellent on college applications, as long as it's the right kind of activism. Do you understand why I'm telling you this?"

"Uh..."

"Of course not. You were one of the ones involved in the frog incident two years ago, weren't you? Well, that is the _wrong_ kind of activism for college applications. Much like fundraisers that don't raise funds. So would you kindly explain to me why you're skulking around and muttering like a madman? And why you aren't with my Sammy?"

"We're fine. It's all fine." Her eyes narrowed and Danny thought he could feel himself start to sweat. "Really, I was just... Talking to Sam on the phone. We're um... Dividing and conquering?"

"Really."

Danny nodded hastily. "Yeah, I'm trying to keep the party going while she deals with... The caterers?"

Mrs. Manson's expression turned downright caustic. "Oh, don't tell me they forgot the vegetarian option." It was the truth, but he still breathed a sigh of relief when she bought it. "I told those _ridiculous_ men time and time again that this was meant to be an ecological fundraiser! But they were so insistent that they'd never even heard of 'Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarianism'. Well, I'll have to go give them a piece of my mind so Sammy can get back to her party..."

It was nice to have her anger directed at somebody else for a while, but it didn't last long.

"But _you_ really are going to have to be more discrete! We can't have you wandering around like a lunatic, it's making the guests uneasy. I want no more trouble before I deal with dinner, am I understood?"

"Yes ma'am, perfectly." He nodded intently. She gave him one last hard look before blustering out of the kitchen.

Danny was starting to feel like he understood Sam a lot better.

"You think she'll be upset when she finds out they only brought boeuf bourguignon and shrimp scampi?"

Danny nearly jumped out of his skin, and an invisible hand had to catch his arm before he fell over. Phantom laughed. "Sorry, Danny." He didn't sound sorry.

"It's fine! I'm fine!" He took his arm back and dusted himself off. "Remind me to never get on Mrs. Manson's bad side. She's _terrifying_."

"Clearly. You're blushing like a tomato." Phantom fluttered back to visibility. "I thought I should make sure you were ok in here, in case you needed backup."

"Against what, a 40-something housewife?"

"What can I say, she's got an aura. I can see trouble coming a mile off." He crossed his arms across his chest proudly.

"...except when you literally need my help to do that?"

He nearly laughed at the flustered look that replaced Phantom's bravado, but he held back and gave the ghost a smile and a conciliatory pat on the back. "Let's get back out there. The sooner we find this ghost, the sooner I can get back to... The way lamer stuff I've been doing all night." Danny's shoulders slumped. Playing hide-and-go-seek with a ghost was actually way more fun than fundraising. "Uh. On second thought, there's no hurry, is there?"

"We really should stop it before anyone gets hurt," Phantom reminded him.

"Ok. Fine." He sighed. "Find the ghost, save the party, go back to schmoozing. Let's do it."

Phantom nodded and flickered back to invisibility, and Danny lead the way out into the hallway.

The first thing he saw was Sam.

She was in the process of walking through a door. A _closed_ door. He caught a flash of gray and was about to shout when a hand clamped over his mouth, and he was pulled back inside the kitchen.

"I wish," he began, when Phantom let go of him, "that I could walk into one room tonight without being pulled or pushed."

Phantom held up his hands defensively under Danny's glare.

"Sorry, it seemed like you were about to shout at them or—"

"Yeah! That was Sam, my girlfriend!"

"Ah." Phantom was suddenly avoiding eye contact. "I have some bad news."

"Yeah, she's possessed!" Danny shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "I was going to shout because I'm freaking out here!"

"Whatever you do, don't freak out!"

"Why not?!"

"Because you'll freak me out!" Phantom gripped him on both shoulders, giving him a shake, which had never once in history helped anyone calm down.

Danny breathed. Deep breaths, until Phantom stopped freaking out and let go of him. "Ok. Right. So she's possessed, and—"

"Overshadowed, technically." Phantom scratched at his cheek. "Possession is a different thing," he added.

"She's _whatevered_ and we need to stop it. What was step two of the plan?"

"Well, pull the ghost out and thermos it, but that's the other thing. Did you see who she was with?"

"No, I was a bit preoccupied with seeing Sam walk through a door. That seemed like the bigger deal than a random dude, unless she's been half-ghost the whole time I've known her and I'm the last one finding out."

"Don't be dumb. That wasn't a dude, that was Johnny 13."

Danny stared at him.

Phantom took a second to realize why. "Right, you don't hang out in the Ghost Zone. He's a ghost."

"You should have lead with that."

"He's kind of infamous in the 'Zone, ok? I forgot he doesn't get out as much. He's always fighting with his girlfriend and flirting with– Oh no." A hand flew up to cover his mouth, and he stared at Danny with wide eyes.

"What? What's 'oh no'?" Danny asked, "Phantom, you can't just _oh no_ me right now, we left him alone with Sam!"

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

"There's _good news_?"

"...do you want the bad news or the worse news?"

Danny's headache was back and he rubbed at his temples. "Worse news."

Phantom cringed. "Alright, you asked. Johnny is probably trying to steal Sam's body to host _his_ girlfriend's spirit in the human world again."

"'Again'?"

"You don't want to know."

"Uh, ok, so what's the bad news?"

"Um. He's probably being followed by his Shadow."

"Phantom, shadows _normally_ —"

"—Which, right, you wouldn't know, is the name of another ghost that follows Johnny 13 around and causes havoc wherever they go."

"Ok, that's definitely bad news." Danny frowned. "Anything else I should know?"

"Aside from a havoc-causing ghost trying to steal your girlfriend's body, you mean?"

"I'm just trying to not get blindsided again."

"Well, since you asked..."

Danny didn't like how Phantom was smiling at that.

* * *

Danny didn't much like being intangible, either.

He was starting to get used to it, unfortunately, but it was like the feeling of someone dropping an ice cube down your shirt, except all over your body, inside and out. It was deeply uncomfortable.

Or maybe that was the feeling of being invisible. Or maybe it was the flying. Or just all three at once. It hardly mattered.

There was just a lot going on that Danny wished wasn't happening, but Phantom insisted it would be faster than walking, and that every second counted.

But that didn't explain why Phantom felt the need to do barrel rolls above the Manson's expansive backyard. Danny squeezed his eyes shut and clutched both arms tighter around the ghost's back.

Phantom laughed and Danny felt it reverberate through his chest. "C'mon scaredy-cat, we're not even that high up!"

"Promise not to do any more flips and we'll talk about me opening my eyes to help you look."

"I should be able to detect Johnny myself, honestly," Phantom said, making no flip-based promises, but while slowing down his flight a bit, "either him or Shadow should trigger my ghost sense if we get close enough."

"Hey, if you set me down I bet you could find them faster."

That earned him another laugh. "Maybe I like flying with you, Danny."

Terrific. "Ok, I'll be more direct. Put me down."

Phantom put him down.

"Y'see I wasn't really thinking 'on the roof of their guest house' when I said that."

"You should have specified," Phantom whispered.

The high vantage point did give them a pretty good view. Danny stooped down to lie on his stomach, eyes scanning over the area, and at his side, Phantom did the same.

A sound stage had been set up on the far end of the yard, with impressive light rigging and backdrops hanging from a steel structure. A podium sat in the middle, flanked by currently empty chairs. Danny had seen less involved set-ups for some rock bands.

Guests had started to filter out of the house across the lawn, and several were already seated at the tables that had been set up. The whole space was lit against the setting sun by more festive lanterns and filled with the buzz of pleasant conversation. The part of Danny's mind that still cared about fundraising was pleased to see that some of the donors and activists were actually talking to each other over floral centerpieces, although the majority of his attention was spent looking for Sam in the crowd.

He nudged Phantom. "See them anywhere?"

"Not sure, I—" The ghost cut off abruptly and Danny could feel him shiver by his side. He faded back to visibility just in time for Danny to see a puff of blueish mist coming from his mouth. "Scratch that. They're close."

Any trace of casual demeanor had evaporated. Phantom's intense green eyes glowed, darting around the area around their perch; it sent a shiver down Danny's spine.

"I'm going to check inside."

Phantom slipped through the roof into the guest house before Danny could protest.

Which left him sitting alone on a second-story roof.

With no way of getting down.

Danny peered over the side, looking for an opening, or at the very least a soft piece of ground. He'd take a gutter downspout; people climbed down those in movies all the time, how hard could it be?

An open window on the second floor caught his eye and he had another terrible idea.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then clambered over the edge of the roof, easing his legs down and holding himself up with his hands. He did pull-ups all the time when he was training. This was just like a pull-up bar. Nevermind the fact that the gutter was kind of jutting into his fingers or the fact that the nearest ground was 20 feet below him. Or the fact that he was going to have to swing to get in.

The real key was not thinking about it, but that was easier said than done.

A quick rocking motion got him moving forward, and his feet made uneasy contact with the sill. When he was sure he had a decent stance, he moved first one hand, then the other, from the roof to the window frame.

And then he slipped, sliding through the window and collapsing onto the floor inside.

Phantom was floating in the middle of the room, which was an expansive master suite. At the noise, he turned to face the Danny-heap on the floor. "Oh, shoot! Sorry, Danny." He flew across the room and helped the hunter to his feet. "They're definitely in here somewhere. We... _May_ have lost the element of surprise."

Danny glared at him.

"On the plus side, we always have the direct approach?"

"If we can even find them."

"Well," Phantom stopped mid-sentence, clearly startled by the blue mist that escaped his mouth. "Oh, man, that's probably not good."

"What does—"

He didn't finish asking what wasn't good before it became obvious; Phantom grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down to the floor, just in time to miss a bright pink ecto-ray that shot over both their heads. He clambered back to his feet to face the ghost it came from, only to find himself looking at Sam.

But it didn't look like Sam.

Even putting aside the ghostly aura, she was looking at them like she was ready for a fight. Standing tall behind her was the sickly-looking teenager he'd seen her with earlier (Johnny 13, apparently), who was draping an arm over her shoulders. And Sam Manson wasn't easily draped over.

"What's the deal this time, Johnny?" Phantom asked, "got in another fight with Kitty?"

"Aww, you don't recognize me?" Sam's mouth was moving, but it wasn't her voice. It was high and nasal. Mocking, too, and distinctly... _Un-Sam._ She threw one end of the loose scarf over her shoulder. "Here I thought I was a trendsetter!"

Johnny laughed behind her. "Don't worry Kitten, Phantom doesn't pay much attention to pretty girls. You're out of his league anyway."

He kissed her on the cheek, but it was her— _Kitty's_ giggle that really made Danny's blood boil. He regretted not having brought his usual gear with him, although when he saw the green glow out of the corner of his eye, it seemed like that might not be too much of a problem.

Johnny and _Kitty_ saw the blast coming and easily dodged it, but they only made it to the malicious-grinning phase of the counterattack. They hadn't expected a second attack from behind.

Neither had Danny, actually, especially since the attack also came from Phantom. Johnny went down like a sack of bricks, but Sam— _Kitty,_ he had to remind himself, flew through the ceiling, chased by the doppelganger.

Danny looked at Phantom questioningly. "New power." His voice was brimming with pride; Danny almost wanted to pat him on the back. "I wasn't sure it'd work actually. Uh, actually, it might drop out at any time, so I'd better get out there. Can you tie Johnny up and try to get something useful out of him?"

"Uh, tie him up with what? He's a ghost."

"Are you telling me you aren't carrying Fenton Phase-Proof Rope?" Phantom tried to look shocked. "What if you had to fight a giant statue?"

He started pulling a thermos off his utility belt, took off the cap, and shook it out onto the floor. A length of cord spilled out.

"Is that..."

Phantom nodded. "Yep. Ever since the museum. You made a really good case for carrying some around."

Danny was impressed, but at the same time, "I literally can't believe you sometimes."

"Just part of my charm, Danny." The ghost smiled and hopped up to a floating position. "Now excuse me, I've got a kitten to catch."

The room's ornate four-poster bed made for an ideal spot to tie Johnny up. He was still out cold, so Danny waited by the window, watching Phantom and Kitty fighting high above the lawn. It was for the best they were so high up, considering the governor was taking to the stage to deliver his speech to the assembled audience. If they were closer to the ground, the inconspicuous men wearing suits and sunglasses might have actually realized something was wrong.

A groan from the bed pulled him back from the wall. Danny walked over to the bed and tried to look down at Johnny threateningly, but it was difficult to do while completely unarmed.

Still, he wasn't expecting the ghost to recover its cocky attitude quite so fast. One good look at Danny was all it took.

"Hey, I know you," he sneered, "you're the kid of the ghost hunter that screwed up my girl's body!"

"Is that what this is about? You're getting revenge by overshadowing my girlfriend?"

"Ha! That's your girlfriend? That makes this even better. Kitty ain't overshadowing her, she's _possessing_ her."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"The difference being that my shadow is gonna bring down that stage and ruin your little girlfriend's life forever. When she's as low as she can get, Kitty takes over for good. And there ain't nothing you can do about it!"

Danny heard a dorky cheer out the window and broke into a wide smile. "Maybe not freakshow, but you shouldn't have counted out Phantom so quick."

"Yeah!" Phantom dropped through the ceiling, holding Sam's limp body under one arm. "What he said!"

He received a pair of glares at how he was holding her before quickly readjusting to a more secure grip, and setting her gently down on top of the sheets.

"Ok, let's see if I can remember how to do this..." Phantom reached an intangible hand into Sam's torso with a look of concentration on his face.

He was moving his arm around like he was searching for something; whatever he was doing, it got a reaction. Sam's body, or at least the ghost inside it, came alive again, making weak attempts to push him away. He held her down with his other arm and kept fishing around.

It was uncomfortable for Danny to watch as it probably was to experience first hand. "Uh, what exactly is... this?"

"I'm trying to pull Kitty out of her. It's normally not too hard to pull out a ghost that's overshadowing someone, this is weird..."

"Johnny said she's being possessed, not overshadowed," he explained.

Phantom paused. "Really? Oh. I guess then I should try something more like... _This_."

He made a harsh, jerking motion, and pulled a strange green-haired ghost out of Sam. It looked a bit like she was melting, but Phantom made quick work of her with a thermos.

"Well, that's that. Here you go, Danny."

He tossed the thermos, and Danny caught it with one hand, giving it a satisfying flip before he clipped it to his belt. "Looks like you lost, Johnny."

"Night's still young, kiddo."

That wiped the smile off Danny's face right away. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What, you thought just 'cause you pulled out my girl, I was gonna call back my shadow?"

Danny looked at Phantom, who paled.

And then Sam's arm shoved him straight onto the floor.

She sat up with a gasp, looking around wildly. When she recognized where she was, her eyes widened in realization and she leaped off the bed, running unsteadily for the door.

He stepped in front of her, trying to hold her back. "Whoa, Sam, calm down! You were just—"

"Danny! There's no time, the stage!" She struggled against his arms, but he held firm.

"We know, we know, we can fix it, but you—"

She decked him.

When he got back up, she was gone, and he had a bad feeling he knew where she was going.

Leaning out the window, he could see her making a beeline for the stage. He swore and ran for the door himself, shouting semi-coherently at Phantom as he passed.

When he got outside, Sam was ahead of him, trying to fight her way past the governor and his security detail. They'd just stepped down from the stage, but it wasn't empty. The MC's words made Danny's blood run cold.

"And now, a few words for our gracious hosts and honorary FLEW members, Pamela and Jeremy Manson!"

As the applause died down, Sam managed to get past the MC on the stairs and had just reached her parents when Danny spotted the dark figure flit through the steel scaffolding. It immediately rusted and crumpled. The lighting rigging creaked and snapped just as the elder Mansons were shoved from the stage.

Sam didn't make it off in time.

A black and white blur sped past him as the screeching and crashing of metal became overwhelming, and he was stopped in his tracks by the cloud of dust that was kicked up around him, and then again by the MC who was holding him back by the jacket.

He slipped out of it. He had to see for himself. If Sam had... If Sam was... He had to know.

Danny climbed over the wreckage. People were shouting, but he was focused on the metal beneath him.

He was calling Sam's name, his voice growing hoarse. She couldn't be... But,

A black and white blur out among the tables and fleeing guests caught his eye.

Phantom shot out of the ground, supporting Sam with one arm. She clung to his side until her parents rushed over and he had to make a hasty exit. When she wavered, they clung to her like she might disappear too.

But from on top of the rubble, Danny and Sam never broke eye contact. It was the lightest he'd felt in hours.

* * *

The damage was mostly cleaned up within two hours.

Danny had to admire the Mansons' resourcefulness. He'd seen Sam's dad make a single cell phone call from the back of an ambulance, and a work crew a dozen strong had descended on the back yard; he sat watching from a darkened hill as they hauled away the last dregs of the twisted metal. They'd done most of the work in the time it had taken Danny to get out of the police interview.

The police got maybe 10% of the truth. The usual. In ghost hunting, some things were just better left unsaid.

Sometimes he didn't have that luxury.

A thermal blanket was draped around his shoulders and he turned to see Sam trying to smile at him kindly.

"You looked like you needed it more than me."

He frowned. "You're sure? You were probably possessed for half a day."

"Don't remind me." Sam visibly shivered as she took a seat on the grass next to him. He noticed how careful she was on the descent like some joints weren't quite working how she expected.

And then she punched him in the shoulder.

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to shatter. I'm fine."

Danny pulled the thermal blanket tight around himself, looking straight ahead. "I'm not."

"I just saw you staring, don't even try to lie. I'm built of tougher stuff than you think, I'm not gonna break because of one little ghost."

He shook his head. "No, I mean _I'm_ not fine."

"Oh." There was a long pause, punctuated only by the scrape of metal on metal. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

No. No, he didn't. He was having trouble looking at her. He kept noticing the way the distant lanterns were reflected in her eyes. The way her hair was blacker than the navy blue sky above them. The scrapes and cuts from when he'd almost lost her. It was going to make this worse.

"Sam, I'm... I'm glad you and Tucker have been helping me keep the ghosts under control."

She bumped him on the side with her shoulder. "Try not to sound too excited about it. I know we've been hanging out all summer, but after last year you can't be sick of us already, can you?"

"That's not what I mean. I've been happy to have the help."

"I've been happy _to_ help Danny. It sucked when you weren't letting anybody in. I barely saw you. You kept showing up late to school covered in bruises. If I can take anything off your shoulders, I'm happy to. Both Tucker and I are," she added.

"It's dangerous. And that's... What this is about."

Sam pulled away from his side, and he went back to looking at the grass. "...what's 'this', Danny?"

He pulled up a few blades by the roots, twisting them in his hands. The question hung over them until his fingers were turning green. "I don't think I can date somebody who is putting their life on the line like that. Not all the time."

She laughed, hollow and forced. "Seriously? You know it's not safe for you to try taking on all the ghosts in Amity Park by yourself again. The attacks have only been getting worse. You need Tucker and I, and we need you. You can't just shut us out again."

"I know, I know, but it's like..." Danny sighed and threw the mangled grass down onto the lawn. "When that stage collapsed on you, I thought you were dead, Sam."

He managed to look at her again, just for a second. It was a mistake, but he tried to press on as fast as his voice would allow him. "You were dead and it was all my fault. And I know we've been friends forever but now that we're dating, it wasn't just... It was also like my heart was being torn out and stomped on. And I can't go through that again. I can't date somebody I fight ghosts with."

At the bottom of the hill, the last of the scrap metal was being packed onto a truck. The scar in the grass was the only thing to show anything had happened at all.

"Danny," she began, voice wavering, "I can't let you get hurt either. I need to know you're safe out there."

"Yeah," he agreed.

"I can't give up ghost hunting."

He dared another glance at her. She wasn't crying too.

"I know."

* * *

Danny really, really didn't want to do this.

But he also didn't want Phantom to follow him the _whole_ way home. There were another 20 blocks to go and everyone they passed on the sidewalk was turning around to stare at him when they felt the chilly spot in the air.

The first step was getting off the main road. He ducked down a quiet back alley and waited. Eventually, a pair of boots crunched into the gravel and he saw them approach out of the corner of his eye, and Danny followed them up to look at their owner. Phantom looked back at him with concern written across his face.

"Hi, Danny."

"Hey, Phantom."

"I um... I heard what happened."

Danny sighed and hopped up onto an old wooden traffic barrier that wobbled when he shifted. "Terrific."

"Are you ok?"

Danny stared.

"Uh, sorry, that was just..." Phantom's sentence fizzled out, and Danny looked away. Hopefully, if he pretended to be really interested in what all the rusty pipes bolted to the brickwork were for, Phantom would just leave.

But today clearly wasn't his lucky day. Phantom clambered onto the traffic barrier next to him; hovering, if the lack of creaking wood was any indication.

"Do you... Want to talk about it?"

"Thanks for saving Sam. Twice, I guess."

"It was no problem. You helped, anyway."

"Some help," he scoffed. "I didn't even notice somebody I care about get possessed."

"Ghosts are sneaky." Phantom reached a hand around Danny's back to tap on his far shoulder, probably hoping for a laugh.

He didn't get one. Danny went back to staring at the alley detritus.

"Listen," Phantom tried again, minus the grin, "you don't need to be perfect every time. Nobody is. That's why we don't work alone."

" _You_ work alone."

"Not really. I've got friends I turn to, too." That was news to Danny, but Phantom looked serious. He didn't get a chance to ask the question before the ghost shrugged. "Other ghosts mostly. Although there's this one human I work with sometimes. It's crazy, I know, but he actually thinks before he acts, and plans stuff out, and he's really good at what he does because of it."

Danny sighed and slumped back against the brick wall with a thud, although Phantom kept going.

"And yeah, sometimes stuff doesn't work out, and then all that thinking turns into beating himself up over stuff he couldn't have helped anyway. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm glad to have him around."

"Phantom, we barely even see each other. Just give it time."

"Whoa, did you think I was talking about you? I meant your dad."

"Wha—?" He nearly fell backward turning to stare at Phantom, who was grinning from ear to ear. He shoved the specter, who cackled as he floated straight off their makeshift bench. Danny allowed himself a chuckle. "Come on man, that was terrible."

"Made you laugh though," Phantom said, floating back to sit next to him.

"Yeah," he admitted, "I guess it worked."

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while.

"Do you..." Why was he talking about this? He'd already decided he didn't want to. But a part of him felt like he needed to ask _someone_. "Do you think I did the right thing?"

Phantom hummed and shifted, but didn't respond right away. After a moment, he just shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. I'm no expert."

"That makes two of us, clearly."

"Yeah, but, you know you, right? If you don't think you could, you know. Keep doing it. The ghost hunting and dating that is. Then I guess you're the expert at how you feel."

Danny sighed again. "I don't know what I feel. It's like I'm being pulled in two directions. What if I want both? Or neither? How am I supposed to know what my options are, even?" He was rambling and he knew it.

Phantom was nice enough to not point it out. "Just go with your gut. Works for me, mostly."

"I think that's more your department." That got a chuckle out of Phantom. "What's your gut telling you?"

"If it was me, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think I'd mind dating somebody I was ghost hunting with. I think I'd want to have something in common, you know? Something we could do together."

He was pretty sure he was blushing. "I guess. Maybe you're just stronger than I am."

"Oh, your situation is totally different though. You went through a lot tonight, I don't think anybody could blame you for making that call right now."

"I don't like the idea that my logic would change on a different night."

"That's just life, I guess. You need to allow yourself to change your mind sometimes. And stop beating yourself up in general, actually."

Danny scoffed. Phantom elbowed him in the side and the wood cracked dangerously.

"I'm being serious," Phantom said, hopping down into the alley, "tonight kind of sucked, but there'll be more nights. They won't all be like this. And eventually, you'll get back in your groove."

"I don't know. But... Thanks for saying so."

"Any time, Danny. Now how about I fly you home?" Phantom held out a hand for Danny to take.

And Danny's hand almost met his, before stopping suddenly mid-way. He narrowed his eyes at the ghost. "No more flips."

"Ok, fine," he promised. "No more flips."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Production Hell is a real place & I had to lead this story out of it without looking at it too hard or I'd have lost it forever. Or something. Much like this chapter, my Orpheus and Eurydice references are strained.
> 
> I think four months on a single chapter is a personal record, and I'm hoping not to break it. The upcoming chapters should be more straightforward, if only because I'm shelving some of the drama in favor of the action/romance as we move away from the canon 'ships. I'll just say that as the story's focus changes, so does Danny's.
> 
> But first, a brief interlude from the middle of nowhere.


End file.
